By: Jane Ross
While most of the acreage the Redding Land Trust holds, outright or in easement, has been given by conservation-minded citizens, the Trust stood ready in the past – and stands ready today - to use funds donated by generous individuals to purchase desired sites in partnership with others. When 12 years ago, a large property valued for its environmental and historic importance as a Revolutionary War encampment came on the market the Trust pledged $50,000 toward the purchase, contributing an immediate $11,000 binder to hold the property until The Nature Conservancy and the Town could secure the purchase funds.
When Land Trust President Mary Anne Guitar handed a check for $39.000 to TNC’s Steve Patton, director of its Saugatuck Forest Land Project, at the time of the Trust’s 2003 Annual Meeting, and in celebration of the closing on the purchase, she said, “The money has come from the Trust’s annual membership drive, from private donations and from bequests in wills.”
Today, the Redding Land Trust again stands ready with a $170,000 pledge to match a grant of $170,000 that has been awarded the Town of Redding by the state in order to purchase a treasured 30-acre property at the gateway to Redding Center near the intersection of Routes 53 and 107 in a historic watershed area. This gift, too, is made possible by the generosity of the Land Trust friends and supporters. We are counting on you again to help us preserve our precious open space in a time when donated land grows scarce and we must often help to buy land to preserve the unspoiled environment that makes Redding so unique among our neighbors.
